The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 88Jose at first made the car lurch so badly that he felt his neck might never return to its proper shape butat which Gerald only laughed and Eudora applauded, he loaded up his valise and Eudora's luggage andthe two set off. The roads were a slushy mixture of snow and partially frozen mud, and with Jose beingextra cautious with both Eudora and the borrowed automobile, the fifty miles from Camp Sherman toRockville took nearly five hours to cover.At last, as snow began to fall through the dim headlights like an impenetrable sheet of shootingstars, the two entered the scant collection of houses that was Rockville and made their way downColumbus Street, which was as much of a Main Street as Rockville would ever have. Eudora pointedout her father's store as they passed it, a small building that looked barely large enough to house anygoods whatsoever. Directly past the store the automobile bumped over a lone set of railroad tracks.A long gentle grade down presented itself on the far side of the tracks, and the automobile hadalready started to accelerate downwards when Eudora told Jose that her house was directly at thebottom of the hill. Jose pressed on the brakes and locked the wheels, and the automobile began a slowand graceful slide. He turned the steering wheel left and right, but the car had a mind of its own andafter rotating itself clockwise it ultimately decided that sideways was the way it preferred to descend,leaving Jose to stare over the driver's door at the bottom of the hill with Eudora behind clutching on, anunintentional replay of their toboggan trip from the weekend before.The car and its two passengers came to a stop almost as soon as the grade flattened out, pointingat a small white frame house set not far back from the road. It looked cheerful and cozy through thesnowfall, and Jose was pleased and impressed with his driving skills when Eudora told him that theyhad come to a stop at exactly the right place. Finally relaxing his foot off of the brake, Jose shepherdedthe car into the yard and cut the motor. The pair stepped out into snow that rose halfway up to theirknees and worked itself insidiously into their shoes as they held hands and trudged to the back door.